Longtime welder sculpting career as Southern potter

Monday

As a child growing up in Aiken County, Gary Dexter marveled at the abundant pottery shards left behind by antebellum potters.

"The woods I played in as a kid were full of what I called broken dishes," he said. "The whole hillside was just covered."

Much later, as an adult, the Vaucluse, S.C., man found his welding career cut short by debilitating arthritis - and therapists gave him lumps of pliable clay to squeeze during rehabilitation.

That's when a fascination with history collided with clay - and a new passion was born.

During the past 15 years, Mr. Dexter has completed a metamorphosis from his former life as a welding instructor at Aiken Technical College into his current role as a Southern folk potter who uses the methods and materials that made this region famous centuries ago.

"It was a huge industry, dozens of potteries," he said, referring to the uniquely glazed vessels made 100 to 200 years ago in the Fall Line region once known as the Edgefield District.

The pottery, which carries a peculiar alkaline glaze that radiates with a greenish brown tinge, comes from clay that is rich in aluminate, he explained.

Mr. Dexter operates a studio and kiln at Enterprise Mill along the banks of the Augusta Canal.

His pots are made from a blend of clay taken from the canal banks, and from the claypits that once comprised the Baynham pottery works in North Augusta - now home to the new Hammond's Ferry development.

"When you dig it out, it's full of rocks and roots and sometimes shards of old pottery," he said.

The clay is mixed with water until is becomes a slurry that can be screened to remove debris. Then it is dried to the proper consistency and soon takes on new shapes as storage jars, bowls, jugs and an occasional sculpture. Once coated with glaze made from ashes and sand, it is ready to fire.

The "groundhog" kiln Mr. Dexter built beside Enterprise Mill is modeled after similar structures of centuries past that were flanked with earthen berms with a small opening in the front and a chimney at the rear.

"I'm not a bricklayer, so this took a lot of time and work," he said.

Fired by wood, and ventilated by removing bricks from specially placed draft holes, the kiln heats to an inside temperature of 2,300 degrees, which activates the remarkable glaze that gives Edgefield pottery its charm.

"When the kiln is going, the pots become translucent - you can almost see through them," he said. "It's like looking directly into the sun. It's an incredible process to witness."

If all goes as planned, the runny, drippy glaze that changes colors according to the iron content in the ashes and clay gives each vessel a lasting finish. "When it comes out of the kiln, it looks 200 years old."

Each firing session lasts 40 hours or more, followed by five days of cooling, during which any number of problems can occur.

"Once I had a sudden gust of cold wind blow into the chimney," he said. "It cracked almost everything."

Typically, 60 to 70 percent of the vessels survive firing, but there are always casualties.

"I always tell people not to get too attached to anything, because it might not come out," he laughed. "And if I'm doing a special order piece, I usually try to make two of them."

Mr. Dexter sells his pottery at the Augusta Canal Interpretive Center and other places, and he prides himself on making pieces that fit as well in a kitchen as they do in a display case.

"I want people to use my pottery so I make mostly utilitarian stuff," he said. "It's not just something to look at."

In the long term, he hopes to share what he has learned about his craft and become a link between the past and future by taking on apprentices with whom he can share his trade secrets.

"Learning to make pottery like this was a long road of trials and failures, and I can tell you: there were lots of failures," he said.

Many potters use gas-fired kilns and more modern methods, but he hopes to preserve the use of hand-gathered clay and wood-fired kilns. "Nowadays, most people don't want to work that hard," he said. "But I think it's the only way to go."